Attempt at Storytelling

September 11, 2007

We reluctantly trudged what seemed like miles through Reagan National Airport to Terminal A. If you've ever been to Reagan National you know that the distance from the entrance of the airport to Terminal A feels like a trek to the other end of the world, even when you are not dreading reaching it. My brother had been home on leave for a week between his 3-month training in Mississippi and his next adventure: Iraq. There to see him off were my dad, my mom, Donnie's girlfriend Emily, and me. We sat at the airport bar and ate shoestring french fries while my mom attempted to fill the silence with random, useless information. "Did you hear about the schoolteacher in Alabama who was arrested for selling drugs?" "I saw an article yesterday about how there is a chance that eating pineapple causes cancer." "Yesterday Grandma called and said that her azaleas are finally blooming." Of the four of us, my mom most often deals with silence by filling it.

Eventually the inevitable could no longer be avoided. It was time for him to go. I didn't know what to feel. I had just started my senior year of high school and wasn't quite sure what to do considering I was losing my best friend for almost a year. Best case-scenario, he would be home on a short break in February and then home for good in May... we would talk online and on the phone as often as possible and things wouldn't be too different than when he was just at college. Worst case-scenario, he would take a place at Arlington with a headstone a few rows from my neighbor, Captain Brian Letendre, who gave up his life amidst the ugliness of war the year before. Brian hung in my mind the entire day I said goodbye to Donnie; praying my brother's fate would be different but also realizing it could have been the last moments I shared with him. I soaked each minute up - trying to memorize his face and his voice and his smell and the way he walked and his facial expressions and his mannerisms.

As he hugged me goodbye and I cried my eyes out, he showed no emotion. He has always dealt with nerves and apprehension with a few deep breaths and a forward gait. This day was no different. After what was probably about 5 minutes he turned and made his way to security. We stood watching as the airport guard checked his ID. We watched, staring dumbly as he removed his wallet and iPod from his pocket and placed them in the gray loose-object bin. He walked through the metal detector, gathered his things, and continued on his way. Our eyes followed him until he turned the corner and was gone.

Then the real tears started. I felt so exposed walking through the airport with a broken heart while the people around me were on their way to Disney World or a business trip or picking up their best friend for a week of fun or seeing their daughter off to Grandma's house. Sitting on the shuttle from the airport to the parking garage, a woman saw a sad man with three sad women and expressed sympathy to us - my mom told her, "my son just left for Iraq." All of a sudden the soldiers on the news and in the papers became my brother - the thousands of stories of military families became my family, my story. And I wanted nothing in the world more than to 'trade in' my story for someone else's.